Hui Yao's research focuses on modern Chinese literature, wartime cinema, and the interplay between cinema, traditional theater and spoken drama. She is also a literary translator. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include Chinese languages, literatures and cultures.

Her reflections on and practice of sanqu song translation can be found in "In Search of Pure Sound: Sanqu Songs, Genre Aesthetics, and Translation Tactics," a multi-author essay that appeared in the Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture (8: 1 2021): 163–202. She has also contributed a "Visual Resources" list to How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2022), edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina S. Llamas.

Yao has a B.A. in teaching Chinese as a foreign language from Shanghai International Studies University and an M.A. in East Asian languages and civilizations from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently working toward getting a Ph.D. degree in East Asian languages and literatures at The Ohio State University. Before joining Duke Kunshan, she taught Chinese language and East Asian humanities, and worked for the translation and interpreting program at The Ohio State University.